Truth Revealed
by toby7400
Summary: The ending of Spec Ops; The Line reenacted by ponies.


Author's Note; This is the result of me playing Spec Ops: The Line all day on Veteran's Day. Don't own MLP or Spec Ops, and there's also a quick reference to a fairly popular fan character called Rainbow Feather, whom I also don't own.

Truth Revealed

Loading Screen

This is all your fault!

Can you even remember why you came here?

It's time to learn the truth.

Load Complete

Scootaloo tumbled and fell in a heap at the bottom of the sandbag wall. "Run, mother bucker!" Apple Bloom yelled, before turning back to the approaching renegade Royal Guards.

The orange pegasus leap to her hooves and ran as fast as she could, the shredded, burnt remnants of her CMC cape flowing behind her. As Scootaloo fled, the night sky was lit up by explosions and the racket of gunfire. Soon the bridge she was running across rocked with the force of Apple Bloom's stand against the 33rd Royal Guard Battalion.

As a particularly strong explosion rocked the bridge, Scootaloo tumbled to the ground. The filly laid there for a time, just thinking. She was so close; Rainbow Dash's tower was less than a block away. Scootaloo struggled back to her hooves and shuffled up against the railing.

As the pegasus filly wrecked over the railing, Rainbow's voice came over the radio Scootaloo had found near the charred bodies of the other Elements of Harmony. "You always knew it would end like this, Scootaloo. Your friends dead, your world on fire. You're a failure. Finally, something we have in common."

As her former ideal's voice went silent, Scootaloo made her way up the steps and into the tower. A pristine fountain continued to work as the Cutie Mark Crusader passed, despite all the water in Dune-by being destroyed. Scootaloo entered the lobby, sharks and other exotic sea creatures swimming in massive tanks around her. The filly noticed several silhouetted figures standing in two lines on either side of the elevator at the end of the hallway as she followed the red carpet toward them.

"Squad, ten-hut!" a stern voice snapped, and the figures stood taller and more proudly.

Scootaloo entered the hall to find herself surrounded by fifteen Royal Guard ponies in tattered armor, the very ponies Scootaloo had come to save and killed too many of to count. "Captain Scootaloo, we're all that's left of the Damned 33rd." a Zebra Squad sergeant said. He and the other defeated guards saluted, "We surrender, Dune-by is yours, you have our word."

"Where. Is. Rainbow Dash?" Scootaloo demanded in her now horse voice.

"The colonel never changed her venue." The zebra said, "She's upstairs, waiting for you."

As the sergeant finished, the elevator doors opened. Scootaloo trotted past the still saluting Royal Guards and entered the elevator. As the last CMC ascended several hundred stories, the exhausted filly collapsed against the side of the elevator. "Well done, Scootaloo. You've done what the storms couldn't; destroyed the Damned 33rd." Rainbow taunted, "Do you feel like a hero yet?"

"Please, come in," the fallen Element Barer invited as the elevator doors opened and Scootaloo shuffled out into a luxurious hotel sweet. It seemed more Rarity's style then Rainbow's, but Scootaloo shrugged the thought off. As the pegasus made her way into Rainbow Dash's room, the Element of Loyalty spoke through the radio again. "Now that you're here, I wanna ask you a question. What did you think when you arrived in Dune-by? When you saw what I'd done? Did you think it was the work of a...mad mare?"

"Yeah," Scootaloo growled, "I thought you'd lost you bucking mind. Or I hope that's what happened."

"Yeah, that would make things easier, wouldn't it?" Rainbow asked, almost kindly, "But I wasn't that lucky, and neither were you."

Scootaloo stopped short at the comment. Now standing in the living room, Scootaloo looked for any trace of Rainbow Dash. She noticed light coming from the upper floor and moved toward the stairs. As she moved around the coffee table, the filly noticed a piece of paper with Rainbow's hoof writing. The note read, "Rainbow Feather. Someday, somepony is going to tell you about your mother (the pony, not the griffin). For that, I'm sorry. Mommy loves you, Feather."

"I'm upstairs, squirt," the radio said impatiently, "When you're done riffling through my stuff, I want to show you something."

Scootaloo climbed the stairs to see what appeared to be a meticulously cared for sand garden, a huge canvas, and Rainbow Dash standing with her back to the filly. Rainbow continued to add small touches to her painting as Scootaloo approached.

"No matter how hard I tried, I could never escape the reality of what happened here," Rainbow said without turning around. "That was my downfall."

The rainbow maned pegasus added one final dab of paint and backed away. "There, finished!" she announced proudly. She finally turned to Scootaloo gestured toward the painting. "I hope you like it."

"What the hay is this?" Scootaloo asked glancing at the disturbing portrait.

"Your eyes are opening for the first time." Rainbow explained, "It hurts, doesn't it?" The cyan pegasus gestured to her work encouragingly, "Go on, what do you think? Pretty awesome, huh?"

Scootaloo hesitantly stepped up to the side of the older pegasus and looked at the nightmarish image. Saddle Arabian ponies desperately clawed at fences and each other trying to escape as they were burned alive and bodies swung from streetlights in the background. In the center of it all, a mother cradled her daughter, trying to comfort her precious filly in their last moments.

"You did this." Scootaloo stated.

"No, you did," Rainbow countered, stepping away from Scootaloo, "Your orders killed forty-seven innocent ponies. Somepony has to pay for your crimes, Scoots. Whose it gonna be?"

With that said, Rainbow Dash stepped behind the portrait. Scootaloo followed only to find there was nopony here. Looking around, the filly spotted a comfy looking chair with somepony lounged in it, but with the dim lighting, Scootaloo couldn't tell who it was. "Dash?" Scootaloo called tentatively stepping toward the figure, "Dash, is that you?"

"You tell me." Rainbow's voice seemed to come from everywhere.

"I'm done playing games, Dash." Scootaloo grumbled.

"I assure you, this is no game." With that, Scootaloo turned the chair around and came face to face with Rainbow Dash's corpse. The deceased pegasus was dressed in her Royal Guard dress uniform and still had a pistol grasped in her hoof. She had been dead a long time. Scootaloo's bloodshot eyes bulged as she stared dumbly at the body. Coming to her senses somewhat, Scootaloo pulled the pistol free to look at it.

"It seems that reports of my...survival, have been really exaggerated," Scootaloo spun around to see a living Rainbow standing behind her, but when she looked back the body was still there. Around the three bodies, everything had gone dark, "I'd say by at least twenty percent."

"This is impossible."

"Oh, it is, Scoots."

"How!?"

"Not how, why," Rainbow calmly explained, "You were NEVER meant to come here."

"_We have our orders," Scootaloo explained to Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, "We locate survivors, then leave the city. Then we call in the flying carriages and go home."_

"What happened here wasn't my fault." Scootaloo insisted.

"Wasn't it?" Rainbow's apparition scolded, "None of this would have happened if you had. Just. Stopped. But on you marched." _Scootaloo looked up at the flaming Tower of Dune-by_. "And for what?"

"W-we, we tried to save you." Scootaloo almost pleaded.

"You're no savior," Rainbow scoffed, "Your special talent is something else."

_Scootaloo watched as the window she'd shot out gave way to an avalanche of sand on the rouge Royal Guards._

_The 33rd's interrogator viciously snapped Soarin's neck because Scootaloo wouldn't let Sweetie Belle take her shot._

_Scootaloo walked away as Spitfire screamed, at first for help, then in pain as she burned alive._

_Scootaloo screamed with adrenaline as she pelted the crumbling radio tower with minigun fire._

_Apple Bloom and Scootaloo vengefully fired into the crowd that had hung Sweetie Belle._

"_This is your fault!" Sweetie Belle shrieked, the phosphorous charred bodies of civilians all around the Cutie Mark Crusaders._

"_That's enough, Sweetie Belle!"_

"_But it is!" Sweetie insisted, "She turned us into monsters!"_

Noticing a flicker of light, Scootaloo glanced over her shoulder; there was a skull and crossbones on her frank. Scootaloo looked away, "NO! No, this wasn't my fault!"

"It's takes a strong mare to deny what's write in front of her," Rainbow said unmoved. The darkness lifted and Scootaloo now stood in a ruined hotel room. Alone, "and if the truth is undeniable, you create your own."

_Scootaloo stood and looked up at a pair of skeletons hanging from a highway sign. "What the hay happened?" Apple Bloom asked._

"_I don't know, she just stopped moving," Sweetie Belle answered._

"_Scoot!" Apple Bloom said loudly, "Snap out of it!"_

"_I get it, we're meant to choose." Scootaloo announced._

"The truth, Scoots," Rainbow said, her and the darkness having suddenly returned, "is that you're here because you wanted to feel like something you're not. A Hero. I'm here because you can't accept what you've done." _Less than an hour after attacking the gate with white phosphorus, Scootaloo picked up a broken radio_. "It broke you."

"_Rainbow?" Scootaloo asked the broken radio as Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle exchanged confused looks, "Rainbow, please!"_

"_Sweetie!?" Scootaloo yelled seeing her dead friend wielding an automatic shotgun._

"_You left me to die!" Sweetie Belle shouted._

"_What's goin' on, Scoots?" a confused Apple Bloom asked._

"_It's Rainbow Dash," Scootaloo said, tucking the radio into her saddle bag, "She did it, all of it."_

"You needed somepony to blame," Rainbow said turning away from Scootaloo, "So you cast it on me. A dead mare." Scootaloo followed her deceased idol to the window, she could see her own and Rainbow's reflections in the glass. When the cyan mare spoke again, her tone had finally softened, "I know the truth is hard to hear, Scoots, but it's time. You're all that's left, and we can't live this lie forever."

The reflection of Rainbow Dash raised the pistol she'd used to commit suicide, leveling at Scootaloo's head. Scootaloo had the pistol she'd taken from the body in her hoof. "I'm gonna count to five," Rainbow said coldly, "Then I'm pulling the trigger."

"You're not real," Scootaloo said raising her empty hoof to her temple, "This is all in my head."

"Are you sure?" Rainbow asked with a coy shrug, "Maybe it's in mine. One."

"All of this, everything, it was YOUR fault!" Scootaloo said, raising her pistol on the reflection.

"If that's what you believe then shoot me." Rainbow challenged, "Two."

"I...I never meant to hurt anypony." Tears ran down Scootaloo's cheeks.

"Nopony ever does, Scoots. Three." Scootaloo stood silently, "Four."

The image of Rainbow Dash waited longer before the final number, as Scootaloo continued to look on, broken and hopeless. "Is this really what you want, Scootaloo?"

Scootaloo looked up at 'Rainbow Dash' and sniffed, but said nothing. "So be it. Fi-"

"NO!" BANG!

"It takes a strong mare to deny what's right in front of her." as Rainbow spoke her pistol fell and shattered like glass.

"I'm stronger than you were." Scootaloo said as lowered the smoking pistol.

"Whatever you say, Scoots," cracks appeared and spread all over the image of Rainbow Dash, "Whatever happens next, don't be too hard on yourself. Even now, after all you've done, you can still go home."

Rainbow Dash shattered and the fragments of her fell to the distant ground. "Lucky you."

Scootaloo walked out onto the balcony, looked out over the burning ruins of Dune-by.

"What now, ma'am?" The zebra sergeant from before asked Scootaloo from behind. "The colts are asking, what's the new program?"

"We complete our mission." Scootaloo said, still looking out over the once magnificent city.

"And what mission is that?"

"Just get me a bucking..." Scootaloo turned as she spoke. There was nopony there, just a ruined hotel sweet and a corpse.

"This is Captain Scootaloo, leader of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, requesting immediate evacuation of Dune-by. Survivors; one too many."


End file.
